bold & burning
by former-burning-example
Summary: Rosalie runs away. Leah catches her. Rosalie/Leah. Complete.


A/N: Rose/Leah. T for mild violence/gore.

...

.

She daydreams about chasing elk into exhaustion- tearing through the forest, tattered clothes covered in mud, unrecognizable.

Renesmee laughs and Rose looks up, pulled from herself. Though how much, she isn't sure. She's on the balcony looking in at her family, but it's horribly tilted. The Volturi spared them months ago, though Rose hasn't shaken the thick oppressive air. Maybe it was never about the guard at all.

She looks at them- the odd three of them. Bella and Edward stuck together like planets in orbit and Nessie twirling around them, charming everything in sight. They're a family now, already so removed from the others. Give it a few decades and they'll leave, take Renesmee and that dog with them and disappear.

Her throat burns. She thinks of hunting elk, their uncomplicated brains fritzing with the effort of the chase, finally giving up and dropping in the clearing for her, wheezing and screaming but altogether out of fight. She should just leave them alone, she isn't that cruel. But she never does. She wraps a hand around an antler and hauls upward, teeth to flesh, her thirst wins out.

Edward's eyes snap to hers. He shakes his head, disgusted, as if she'd told her thoughts to Renesmee as a bedtime story.

"You should hunt, Rosalie," he mutters, causing everyone to pause and look at her, and while not unused to such concentrated attention, this is unwelcome. They are confused for the most part and about ten seconds away from writing it off as another one of her moods. Bella looks sympathetic, and for some reason, she can't take it.

She steps back, palms pressing into the wood of the railing. Esme reaches a hand out, but she's already gone, already a hundred feet into the thick of the trees.

…

Two Weeks Later

.

Sometimes it feels like stretching your muscles for the first time after being cramped in a box all your life, but mostly, it just feels you're a gigantic wolf thundering through the woods, trying to get far enough away to break the mental bond.

Seth gave up trying to talk her into coming back a few hours ago, but she can still feel him in the periphery. She's only a couple hours out of Forks. Not far enough to lose them, but still too close to phase back.

Anger never leaves her kind, and she's tired of holding it in, of running into Sam, of hearing Jake's thoughts cycling around that kid, of Seth just buying into everything that's happened, of being stared at, being denied a voice, ignored, pushed aside, taken for granted. _Tired_. After all this, how can she be the only one who sees how _wrong_ this all is?

A growl rumbles in her chest as she lowers her head and burns through a gap in the trees. Her front paws slam into the sandy riverbank, and for a half second, she loses her footing. She overcorrects and leaps across the remainder of the water, suspending herself in the air for just a moment too long.

She doesn't notice the rustling in the bushes until it's too late. A figure springs from the shadows and obliterates her inertia, tackling her into the river. Rocks dig into her back as the water rushes over them both, a flurry of limbs, and by now Leah knows what's happening, and she's _pissed._

Fingers claw into the skin around her shoulders as the creature pulls herself out of the water and leans over Leah, drenched, eclipsing the sun. She's spring-loaded and dirty and so unlike Leah has ever seen her. All she can do is stare as the vampire goes for her neck.

But she stops suddenly, jarred by the lack of fight from her prey. "Oh," she says simply before loosening her grip. "It's you."

She climbs off of Leah and blurs away.

…

Rose wrings out her hair while she waits for Leah to phase back. It takes a while, though Rose decides to take fault for that. Being attacked isn't exactly soothing. She'd been running for so long, she'd given up hunting and just stopped searching. She didn't even pick up Leah's scent until they hit the water. But now it's in her face and all around her- the wolf stink. Though, Leah has never smelled as bad as Jacob or Seth- probably some unknown quirk to being the only one of her own kind.

Leah comes out from behind the trees in a cheap tank top and shorts, her hair is a mess and she's covered in already fading bruises. A stiff apology tugs in Rose's chest, but she holds onto it, and instead watches Leah climb onto a rock a good twenty feet from her. She spares Rose no polite smiles.

"What the hell was that?"

Rose shrugs one shoulder and brushes some sand off her leg. The way she sees it, it's pretty self-explanatory. Vampire eat dog. Dog die. Vampire happy. Her throat burns insistently.

"What are you doing out here? Is this where you've been?"

Rose looks away, trying to account for the days since her departure, but she comes up with nothing but the blur of trees stuck in the underdeveloped gelling of her memories. She has no idea how long she's been out here, but it must be significant if even Leah noticed.

"They're waiting for you," Leah says, and Rose waits for her to tell her to go back, to tell her that she's being needlessly selfish, but she doesn't. She just tosses a rock into the water and sighs. "I get it, I think."

Rosalie scoffs, her throat is raw. Get it? She couldn't possibly.

…

Leah stays.

Rose half-heartedly wishes she wouldn't, but then she'd be alone again, and that might be too much to take. Maybe she'd lose more than time. Still, she'd never let her know that.

"Don't you have a bone to go bury, dog?" she snaps.

"I already did," Leah says without even looking up. "You look like death warmed over by the way."

Rose smiles, thrown a little. Everyone tiptoes around her like she's some kind of bomb, and she might be. Though it'd be a shame if Leah Clearwater were the one to set her off in the middle of the forest when there's no one around to see it.

…

A squirrel drops from a low branch and scampers by. Rose's eyes track its movement until Leah snorts. She slides down from her perch on the rock.

" _That's_ what gets you going?"

The slight jab is met with dark eyes. Too dark, and they have been this whole time. Even in all the time she's spent around the Cullens, she'd never seen any of them quite like this. Genetically predisposed sirens blare in her head, but they aren't paired with a sense of urgency. Instead, she points out across the river.

"There were some elk about a mile back that way."

Rosalie is gone before she can finish, disappeared away in a flash of muted gold.

...

Leah is out searching for a trail when she hears it- an ear-splitting shriek from the other side of the river. She sprints back to the riverbank and spins around, shouting for Rosalie.

She wades across the river, moving in slow-motion as another scream rips through the still afternoon air. She climbs up the bank and scrambles through the brush. She grabs the bottom of her shirt, ready to phase in an instant, but when she finds Rose, she stops dead on her feet.

Streaked in red and glittering grotesquely in the light, Rose has a mountain lion almost twice her size pinned to the ground.

Leah freezes at the sight of the carnage clinging to every part of her. She's ripping the throat out, drinking the blood. She's practically feral.

She's a monster.

Leah's heart picks up, thuds double time in her chest. Heat comes off her in waves, and the thick scent of blood clouds the air. Her vision darkens around the edges as Rose looks up- eyes flicking to hers, a bloody grin. A monster.

But Leah doesn't run. She doesn't even want to run. Her body screams at her. They are natural enemies. She should tear her to pieces, but she doesn't.

The glint in Rosalie's eyes is sharp, she feels inexplicably drawn to the bloodshed, to the bloodsucker.

Oh, they're both monsters.

…

Leah dumps Rose's clothes into the river.

"You don't have to do that," Rose insists, but Leah ignores her.

She knows it won't work. Blood's a little trickier than river water and some rocks. Rose sits on the bank watching her in nothing but her shredded cardigan and her underwear.

Even covered in dirt and blood and who knows what else, Leah can see what everyone goes on about. Beauty incarnate and all that. She wonders idly just how many humans have willingly marched to their deaths at first sight of her. She shudders, though out of what, she's not completely sure.

"So why'd you run away?" she mutters as she scrubs Rose's ruined blouse.

"I didn't-"

"Seriously? What do you call all this?"

Rose shoots her a hard look, but Leah doesn't regret it. Instead, she focuses on the stained material and shoves her hair out of her face with her arm.

"You know, when I was a kid, I used to run away all the time. I'd hide in my neighbor's shed or out in the woods, just anywhere. And I'd think about how much everyone should miss me. Family the most, classmates a little, and some people not at all." She doesn't know why she's telling her any of this, and she doubts Rosalie is even listening, but she keeps talking anyway.

"I'd hide for hours, but no one ever looked for me, so I'd just go home. Turned out, it'd only been five minutes. I never ran away for real, but you did... It's because of the kid, isn't it?"

The rush of the water rises like white noise in the silence of the sea of trees. She can feel Rosalie's eyes on her.

"I couldn't look at them," she says, and Leah pauses. "He got everything I ever wanted, but he never wanted _any_ of it."

It shouldn't have worked out so neatly. Leah couldn't care less about vampire government, but something tells her all those medieval stiffs in capes don't go around pardoning offenders left and right. Edward and Bella practically got their forever on a silver platter, and Jake too, she supposes, though the thought's nearly vomit-inducing.

"You wanted a weird half-vampire baby?" She tries to lighten the mood- her own more than anything, but it just strikes another one of Rose's angry nerves. She has a lot of those, apparently, and to that, Leah can most definitely relate.

Her golden eyes narrow. "I wanted _a_ baby, and I just- There were things I still wanted before everything fell apart." _Or fell in place_.

Leah lets out a breath as it clicks. "And… you wanted _her_ too, didn't you?"

Rose looks away too quickly to play it off. She doesn't even try to. She just gives Leah a slight nod. "I waited too long."

"Does she know?"

"Of course not," she says harshly, but her tone falls through the gaps in whatever it is that's stretching between them. "It wouldn't have changed anything. They're mates, and I'm just… frozen and left behind."

The words claw at Leah's chest, but she pushes them away, refusing. "What about Emmett?"

"He's my best friend, but I don't think he understood."

Leah plucks Rose's clothes from the river and tosses them in her general direction. "Mates, huh. That's like our imprinting, right? I don't even think I can. My whole body's fucked on account of all the unwarranted lycanthropy. Can't sense my soulmate or have my whole life regravitated around them, can't have kids either. It's almost like love and fertility gods hate mythical women."

"I think you're right," Rose says. She smiles. Leah smiles back.

...

They walk until they find a good sized coastal town around dusk. Leah's starving and Rosalie needs different clothes. Well, she doesn't _think_ she does, but Leah was within her right to draw a line somewhere which Rose begrudgingly accepted.

Leah's pace is relaxed. It's too slow for Rose's liking, but she matches it all the same. It doesn't occur to her until the streetlamps flick on that they've the spent the whole day together. She feels something flood her system, and before she can pick it apart she blurts: "Why are you still here?"

The flash of panic across Leah's face is almost moving, almost enough to make her wish she'd phrased it a little softer. But Leah's equally as fast recovery makes her feel all the more powerful.

"You and your family are like my tribe's _personal_ problem. I can't just let you run free. I saw what you did to that mountain lion. What if you killed somebody?"

"And you think you could stop me?" Rose says archly. Leah stumbles over a crack in the sidewalk. Rose smiles.

Leah catches her balance and clears her throat. "Uh, I don't think anyone could stop you from getting what you want- except maybe you- _but_ I'd try."

"How valiant. Though you should know, I've never tasted human blood."

"Bullshit."

"It's true. My meaningful accomplishments are few and far between, but that is one of them."

"That's actually… kind of impressive."

"Oh, finally. After near a century of practiced and excruciating restraint, I get my reward. A dog trips over nothing and calls me mildly _impressive_."

Leah rolls her eyes. "I think you like me more than you let on."

"Whatever helps you curl up into a ball at night."

...

It's not that late, but the streets have thinned out enough and there's not enough sunshine to set off Rose's impromptu diamond showcase. Still, they keep their heads down.

Leah pats her pockets. "Shit."

"What?"

"I don't have any money." She looks around for an ATM or something, but its all for nothing because by the time she makes a full circle, Rose is already digging the cash out of some poor passerby's wallet and tossing it in the bushes.

Leah raises an eyebrow but takes the money anyway. Rose goes back to glaring at the dirt underneath her fingernails, and they fall back into step together.

A few blocks up they find an unremarkable but virtually empty sporting goods store. Rose starts to follow her inside, but Leah points to the bench out front. She might not be in the best shape herself, but at least she's not a walking crime scene like some people.

"No… wait here, bloodstained Barbie. I'll be right back."

…

Rose resents being ordered to stay put, but she sits anyway. She didn't even say please. _Everyone_ says please and thank you and you look beautiful today, Rosalie.

Leah Clearwater says, you look like death warmed over. She stares the monster in the face and rolls her eyes at the theatricality of it all. She curses and stumbles and spends half her time as a giant mutt, but she's bold.

Rose smiles into her hand.

And then the demons rise from the earth.

…

Inside, Leah feels the shift in the air before she sees it. She tenses up at the register as the cashier sluggishly bags her random clearance items and counts out her change. Out the window, she can see Rose crowded by a group of identically dressed boys.

She feels the tension coiling inside Rose, the low growl rolling through her chest. The weaker links back off and Leah smirks. Rose is more than capable of dealing with some half-drunk college boys.

The one in front, the leader, the alpha, the Jake, the _Sam_ stays rooted. He smiles and reaches for her.

Rosalie Hale could probably take out entire countries of frat boys without a second thought, but that doesn't mean she should have to do it alone.

…

Five.

There are five of them. It doesn't matter what they look like. It doesn't matter that almost a century has passed, it's all the same. Praised for her beauty, killed for it too beneath a single streetlamp on an empty night. Nothing will ever change for her.

But suddenly, _she's_ there.

Leah in the darkness. She shoves his chest. Hard. "Back off," she barks, and Rosalie can feel the heat radiating from her, she's breathing hard, she's ten feet tall.

She shoves him again. He's drunk, they're all drunk and barely on their feet, and Leah's threatening all kinds of colorful things. The situation breaks apart in seconds, but Rose doesn't move.

Leah spins around and grabs her by the chin firmly enough to bring the feeling back into her limbs. "Stop it," Leah whispers, her quiet, rumbling growl severs right then.

Rose blinks twice, pulled back to herself.

"You okay?" Leah asks.

"Yeah."

…

They end up in an old diner of all places with fourteen dollars' worth of food piled on the table between them.

Leah had grabbed it as a joke, but naturally, Rose looks just as good in a neon pink shirt that says _Play'n the Field_ in big block letters as she did in her designer whatever now rotting at the bottom of the dumpster outside.

"You know," Rose says, lacing her fingers together on the table, "you never said why you were out there."

Leah drains her milkshake before answering. It's that kind of question. "There wasn't a big _reason_ or anything. Just… now that Jake's got his bloodsuckers- No offense."

Rose shrugs. "Apt phrase, actually."

"Right… well, now that the _big threat_ is gone, it's back to 'Shut up, Leah.' or 'Why don't you go cry over Sam some more." She grumbles the last part out because it's still too hard to just _say_ , and she hates it. "And I just had to get away. Clear my head."

"Sam as in alpha Sam?"

Leah shovels some chili fries into her face. It's only been a day since she's eaten junk like this, but it tastes like it's been a decade of nothing but dirt.

"I thought everyone knew about pathetic Leah Clearwater."

"Of course I knew about you. I just didn't know you had a thing with… _Sam._ " She scrunches her nose. "He's so…"

Leah rolls her eyes. "Wolfy?"

"Yes."

"Well, he dumped me. He imprinted on someone else. I got left behind."

"Leah…"

The sympathy creeping in around the usual ice of Rose's tone nearly makes her wince. "It happens, okay? We're the girls that get left behind. It's fine."

Rose glances down at the rapidly diminishing pile of food in front of her. She plays up her distaste in an effort to change the subject. It's pretty transparent, but Leah's grateful she's trying.

"How can you eat that?"

"You're not one to talk, Miss Slaughter."

"I hadn't hunted in weeks. Since long before I left Forks."

"So… what were you doing out there?"

Rose pushes the end of her braid over her shoulder. "Obviously, I was waiting for a giant mutt to interrupt my brooding."

"Obviously." She pushes her plate away, through in more ways than she can keep track of at this point. But it really is time. She looks at Rose once more, she looks vaguely happy or at least considerably more alive than she did when they collided this morning. She's loath to wreck it, but she does it anyway. Someone has to.

"What the fuck are we even doing, Rosalie?"

Rose bristles. "What?"

"We're not fixing anything by being gone. I mean you had your predator regression or _whatever_ that was out in the forest- I mean, I didn't even _recognize_ you at first. That was like feral performance art, but your family… Your mom." It's kind of a cheap shot. She didn't even have to work for the frown pulling at Rose's mouth.

"Well, maybe when you go back, you can tell her th-"

"Wait, when _I_ go back?" Leah shakes her head, incredulous. "We're going back _together_. You and me."

"Leah, I can't."

"Look, I didn't know you before, but I respected you. The way you talked to Jacob? You were ruthless. And I know I'm a bitch, but you were _the_ bitch. You weren't afraid of anything."

"I _can't_."

"Can't what? Can't help Bella and Edward raise that kid? You know they don't know the first thing about feeding a human, let alone shaping her little mind and teaching her not to bite her friends. And you're worried about seeing Bella? I see Sam every day of my life, and yeah, it hurts. It fucking hurts like hell sometimes, but now you have me to run to when your brain's about to take a nosedive, okay? And I'll probably do the same at three AM because I know you don't sleep."

Rosalie just stares at her. For a long time. Leah counts out nine seconds before she starts to regret it all. _Shut up, Leah. Why don't you go cry over Sam some more?_

But then she smiles, a giant, face-splitting grin, and she laughs. "No one _ever_ talks to me like that." And the words are sharp but she's smiling and it's _weird_ , and Leah's smiling too, and that's weirder.

"You ready?" Leah asks, and Rose nods. "Good."

…

They go home.

Leah's only been gone a day, but Seth hugs her like a magnet. And Rose, who's been gone much longer, gets a houseful of pale faces zooming to her side.

If Rose's mother could cry, Leah doesn't doubt they'd all be drowning in her tears by now. But the way Rose hugs her back, Leah knows they made the right choice.

…

Rose lasts a day and a half before texting Leah to meet her in the woods. They sit in a tree for two hours before Rose says a single word, but once one gets out, she can't stop. Leah doesn't complain once. Except when it starts raining. Then she complains a lot.

…

The first time Leah shows up at the Cullen house in the middle of the night, it's awkward as hell until it isn't. She lies on the floor of Rose's bedroom, staring at the ceiling, recounting the day's grievances- and there are plenty- and Rose listens, offering only a few eye rolls when she's really asking for it. It works.

…

They cover everything from Royce King II to Harry Clearwater's heart attack to their shared aversions to what they are and back again, and within a few months, it seems impossible that there was ever a time they couldn't run to each other.

It isn't all confessionals and anger outlets, though. Most of the time they hang out just for the sake of hanging out. Leah finds that it always takes about an hour to break through Rose's ridiculously elaborate frosty exterior before she acts like her actual self which is really only about two degrees less icy and a lot more fun.

Rose tries to teach her about cars but Leah's eyes always glaze over at the mere mention of a carburetor. Leah shows her some of her art, which Rose immediately takes home and hangs up on her wall, much to Leah's embarrassment. They share music and crappy movies and vague yet somehow always eerie memories from their childhoods.

It gets easier to look when Edward puts his arm around Bella. Leah still talks a lot about Sam and Emily, but the animosity wavers and weakens every now and then.

They have no idea what they're doing, but they wouldn't trade it for anything.

…

Rose goes with them when Leah teaches Renesmee how to play soccer on the beach. Nessie picks it up quickly just like she does everything.

Leah goes easy on her and over-exaggerates her attempts to steal the ball. Nessie laughs and kicks the ball through the makeshift goal drawn in the sand.

"You beat me again?" Leah says, bending at the waist and feigning exhaustion. "Man, you're _really_ good."

They high-five, and Nessie chases after the ball. Leah turns back to Rose, still laughing at something the little girl said. She's waving across the beach, barefoot in the sand, wind blowing through her short hair. She smiles widely.

It's not the first time Rosalie realizes she's beautiful.

…

She's beautiful all the time, even when she's talking about Sam or how all the video games Seth's been playing with Emmett are rotting his brain. Even when her temper gets the best of her and she charges out into the woods for a few hours. Always.

And one day, she keeps going on and on and on about Jacob, but Rose hasn't heard a word of it because she's been too busy staring at her mouth. And Leah's still talking, though she's slowed down a little.

"Are you even listening?"

Without a word, Rosalie closes the gap, in more ways than one, and kisses her.

…

Months later, Rose is running a brush through Renesmee's hair when she and looks up suddenly. She hands the hairbrush to Esme and blurs away before anyone has a chance to ask.

The confused room looks to Edward, who sighs. "Leah's out for a run again."

.

Outside, Leah's about a quarter mile from the Cullen house, earbuds in, Rose's favorite yelly girl band blasting, completely in the zone. She's about to beat her record when she catches movement out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't even have time to brace herself before Rose comes out of thin air and tackles her to the ground.

A cloud of dust rises around them, and Leah coughs, winded. "Jesus, Rose. You trying to kill me?"

Above her, Rose grins. She presses an icy hand to her collarbone, and Leah shivers involuntarily. She's still not used to it.

"You're not that breakable."

"I don't know, am I?"

Rose takes her hands away, eyes wide. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Relax. I'm joking. You're so _sensitive_."

"Shut up," Rose says, leaning down and kissing her softly in the middle of their dust cloud. It lasts a good five seconds before Leah laughs against her mouth.

"What?"

"You're not gonna go all apex predator on me again are you."

Rose glares at her for a half second before disappearing, leaving Leah sprawled out in the middle of the Cullens' driveway, out of breath and just a little turned on.

"Oh, c'mon. You know I'm joking. Rose?"

.

"Rose?"

.

"Seriously?"

…

Later, they're up on the roof, linked fingers, competing temperatures, pressed together like mosaic pieces. It's cloudy, casting everything in pale light.

And Leah's always been the fastest in the pack, but she's still always left in the dust.

Rosalie is the best at everything, but when was it ever enough?

But together, it doesn't feel like a race, a frantic search for a piece validation- a spot in someone's attention. Together they can be what they are and what they strive to be.

And left behind, they caught each other.


End file.
